


mask

by lithalos



Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, Persona 5 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-03-14 21:00:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lithalos/pseuds/lithalos
Summary: Akira was different.





	1. familiarity.

Akechi had noticed it a while ago, noticed it in the engine room as he fought tooth and nail to take Joker and the Phantom Thieves down. It was obvious in the way Joker carried himself, sure and tall. Clear in his voice, a tad bit louder, words less cherry-picked for specific results and more honest. Even the way he fought, more reckless and less restrained, less precise, it was noticeable.

Akechi had noticed it. Akira was off. Different. Different in tiny ways that amounted to something wholly off-putting and strange. Different enough to feel foreign.

At first, Akechi had written it off as a byproduct of circumstance. Akira had been through hell and back at his hands—of course he’d come out a bit scarred, blemished. Different. It was a natural conclusion. So much so, in fact, the rest of the disbanded Phantom Thieves had come to the same conclusion.

Meaning it was inherently the wrong one to draw.

It nagged at him. Watching Akira flip through masks for people at the drop of a hat, watching as he’d fine tune his personality back into something  _ familiar  _ was unsettling. The masks soon became flawless reproductions of themselves, thumbed through as needed with expertise. The Phantom Thieves couldn't see it anymore, but Akechi was too practiced in lies and false faces to miss it.

Akira was different. He just hadn't figured out how. Or, he hadn't  _ yet _ .

Akechi was the only one Akira’s mask was imperfect for, something that had confused him to no end. Before, before everything, Akira would let it slip, show hairline cracks of emotion only Akechi could ever see. Before he’d betrayed Akira, before he’d made sure he was dead and gone in an interrogation room deep underground, Akira had smiled at him. It was always soft, sweet, shy. Small, and unsure. Cracked like his mask.

 

Akechi loved seeing that smile.

 

He no longer could. Not because Akira didn't trust him—though that  _ could  _ play a part in it. Akira had mended his mask, a perfect porcelain shell of indifference between him and Akechi. The only real problem, Akechi supposed, was that it wasn't quite right. It was a perfect cover, sure. No more hints of something precious underneath, just a cold exterior obscuring the truth. He could no longer tell what Akira was thinking or read his emotions in his face. Perhaps that was the intent.

The way Akira interacted with him, though, wasn't quite right. It was formal. They had long since passed formal. He’d been quiet before, yes, but there had always been the undertone of cunning confidence, sly comments and coy smiles that had Akechi unsteady. His wit, much to Akechi’s continued dismay, had been as charming as it was consistent.

Well, whatever. Formalities became inconsequential the moment Akechi had pulled the trigger. No need to be polite to a murderer.

Cornering him about it was a challenge; Akira had been harder to find alone as of late. He’d thrown himself into his friendships wholeheartedly. A good thing, perhaps, if he wasn't simply acting—if the act itself wasn’t so lifeless. It must have been exhausting to be a carousel of rotating fake faces.

Finding him alone behind the counter of Leblanc had been a stroke of good luck.

 

Finding him  _ crying _ and alone behind the counter of Leblanc,

 

not so much.

 

He hiccuped and jolted to a stop, lifting wet eyes to Akechi with a foreign expression. Akechi remembers what surprise had looked like on Akira’s face before he’d drowned it in lacquer; this was close. So close. But off.

“Akechi, sorry. Didn't hear you come in,” Akira muttered, quickly swiping the tears from his face. It smudged  _ something _ on his face, but Akechi wasn't quite close enough to see. “The usual?”

Akechi hummed his affirmation, but didn't say anything more. He wouldn't mention how Akira’s coffee tasted different, wouldn't mention it was  _ missing _ something from before. Before everything.

Instead, he slid into a seat at the counter and observed. The way Akira moved around the equipment, the ingredients, was fluid and confident. That, at least, was the same.

Akechi’s eyes shifted to Akira’s face. Impassive and blank, as always. Hidden by thick frames to hide intentions, hidden by concealer to mask a scar under his left eye—

Odd. Akechi doesn't remember that one.

“Where did you get that scar?” Akechi asked pleasantly as Akira slid a mug of imperfect coffee to him.

For the first time, Akechi saw Akira’s mask  _ really _ break. Panic flickered across his face, slack-jawed and clear. It was odd to see an expression, let alone something so strong, on Akira’s face. Nothing fazed Akira, not even death. Akechi remembers him staring down the barrel of a smoking gun with little more than a passive smile.

As quickly as it came, it was gone. “I've had it for a while. I cover it up,” Akira replied plainly.

 

 _Liar._ _You're lying._

 

“Why?” Akechi couldn't help but ask. He knew he wouldn't get an answer, not a real one, anyways. Akira had stopped being honest with him a while ago.

“Don't like how it looks,” Akira shrugged. It lacked sincerity. “Brings up bad memories.”

“Of?”

Akira’s eyes were sharp, boring unwaveringly into his own. Inscrutable. Frustrating. Indifferent in a way Akechi didn’t quite remember being there before. “Does it matter?” His voice was even, but Akechi could feel the unspoken threat beneath the words.

 

_ Of course it does. _

 

“I suppose not,” Akechi replied. He sipped his coffee. Maybe one day Akira would add cinnamon to it again, like before.

They sat in a loaded silence, uncomfortable in Akira’s presence in a strangely unfamiliar way. Akira had always been soothing, a peaceful respite in his otherwise chaotic and dark life. To see that gone was disheartening.

Eventually, Akira couldn’t feign cleaning the counters anymore; it mirrored his blank, clean stare, reflected an emptiness that had long since seeped into him. His grey eyes shifted away from his blank reflection and straight out the window. And away from Akechi.

Akechi frowned. He’d noticed it a while ago. Akira had been avoiding him.

After all was said and done, it wasn't like Akechi could really  _ blame _ him—in the end, Akechi had tried ( _ and succeeded, he could have sworn he did _ ) to murder him. That typically didn't foster friendships. Or trust. Or a desire to remain by the side of your would-be killer.

He’d thought they were past that, though. Akira had offered him a way out in confidence over small kisses and pleading tears before. Before he’d pulled the trigger.

So, yes. Akechi wasn't too surprised Akira was avoiding him, but it didn't feel right. Akira didn't seem to be scared of him, or even really uncomfortable.

If Akechi  _ had _ to guess… Akira was angry. About what—well, there was a plethora to choose from.

With a deep breath, Akechi sipped his coffee once more. If the damage was already done, there would be no harm in needling further now, would there? “There must be quite the story behind a scar like that,” he commented blandly.

It was a nasty looking thing—jagged and angry. Old. Even under smudged concealer, Akechi could tell it had hurt. A lot.

Akira’s eyes snapped back to him, narrowed with a frown. “Why do you care?” He sounded defensive, petulant like a punk. And abnormal.

“Because you're hiding something,” Akechi replied simply, scrutinizing Akira’s face for a reaction. Something.  _ Anything. _

He flinched.

 

_ Got you. _

 

“Yeah, a scar.” Akira glanced away, suddenly unwilling to meet Akechi’s stare. Bingo. “So what? I just don't like it, okay?”

Akechi felt like he was onto something. An idea, a weird one, had wormed its way into his head. For now, it was intangible and vague, nothing more than an abstract concept at the back of his skull. Slowly, though, he could feel it come into focus.

“Because it makes you different,” Akechi said slowly. He tasted the words, the thought, the idea on his tongue. “Because Akira didn't have it, did he?”

Grey eyes were back on him. They stared. And stared. And stared.

And then he smiled, almost sheepishly, with a bitter laugh. “Should have known.” For the first time since everything—since Akechi’s betrayal, since leaving someone he truly cared for steeped in a pool of blood—the mask broke. No more pretenses, no more pretending. Those grey eyes weren't guarded or even surprised. Just foreign. “Couldn't fool you, huh?”

 

Akechi sipped his coffee.

 

He didn't like the implications of this. Not one bit. Digging for answers was always a gamble—sometimes you'd unearth something that would have been best left alone. Sometimes ignorance truly was bliss.

“I killed him,” Akechi said.

“Yeah,” replied the familiar stranger. “You did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3


	2. strangers.

Ren _adored_ Akira. It was only natural—being the older brother, of course he’d coddle him. Akira was just Ren’s better half, calm and collected when he wasn’t. Better at everything than he was. Smarter. More naturally gifted, more well liked. Even if their parents were indifferent to his younger brother’s excellence, Ren noticed. Ren would _always_ notice.

Fuck them, anyways. They clearly never wanted kids. They didn’t want him _or_ Akira, that much was clear. There was always the implicit idea hanging in the air that they were unnecessary and undesirable. The barely-masked loathing in their eyes, the exhausted apathy, would remind them of that for as long as the brothers continued to be nuisances in their lives. And, despite being twins, despite looking almost identical, they both had radically different reactions to that fact.

Ren did everything he could to make their parents’ lives miserable. Bad grades, skipping school, getting into trouble, more trouble, and even more trouble. Their faces when he came back with one more piercing, one more tattoo, one more cut or bruise, was just resigned indifference. Tired disdain. And they’d ignore him. So everything he’d do, every mistake he’d make, would be louder. Harder to avoid, and impossible to ignore.

 

_They didn’t like him much._

 

Akira, on the other hand, would do everything possible to try to make them proud. Or, at the very least, acknowledge him with anything more than idle detachment. He was top of the class, an ideal student and son. He’d run himself ragged, work himself to the bone, to be noticed.

It always made Ren sick to see.

It always made Ren jealous to see it work, even if it was infrequent at best. One perfect exam score out of the thousands his brother had to have amassed, and their parents would praise him. Always in passing, always a little disinterested, but it always had Akira beaming ear to ear and eager to please more. His little brother did always have a talent for forging the mask people wanted to see, for molding himself into the perfect son, perfect classmate. Tailor made specifically for the recipient and whittling away the imperfections in his personality.

Ren was never like that; having a perfect copy of himself already fucked with his sense of self enough. He didn’t need a flipbook personality on top of it.

He loved Akira, he did. But some days, _a lot of days_ , resentment wormed into his chest. His _perfect_ younger brother outpaced him in everything, was loved by almost everyone. And Ren had nothing. Nothing but the constant ire of their parents and a wicked hot temper.

Ren’s temper got him in trouble fairly often—he’d pick fights in school, he’d pick fights _out_ of school. He’d yell and scream at their parents the second they tried to insult him—or worse, _Akira_. Mostly, though, it was harmless.

Mostly.

Ren doesn’t remember a whole lot about that night—doesn’t want to, honestly. He was walking home from the market after curfew with Akira, one of the few times he can remember them both doing _anything_ together since they got older. Even rarer, was convincing Akira to break the rules, live a little. Be rebellious.

His younger brother never usually appreciated the incitement for rebellion.

That night though, as they wandered through the dark joking and laughing like old times, Ren remembered. He remembered what it was like before they were old enough to understand their parents’ innate disappointment. What _Akira_ was like before expectations of perfection had been chained to him and weighed him down into a serious stranger with Ren’s face.

Ren missed him, honestly. Sharing a room with a stranger was tiring.

But Akira, ever perceptive, heard something.

Finding that _asshole_ —that utter _scum of the earth_ —with that woman set Ren’s temper off. For the first time in a long time, he went nuclear over something that _mattered_. He was justifiably furious.

 

_The woman’s screaming, pleading, still haunts him._

 

But Ren doesn't really remember how the man wound up on the ground. Akira had been trying to soothe the woman, calm her crying enough to get her somewhere safe, all while the man spat threats at Ren. Threats of suits, of cops, of unpleasantness.

 

 _Who gives a damn_.

 

It didn't matter—it's not like Ren cared one way or the other what this man did or who he thought he was. He'd happily pay the consequences of beating monsters like him into a bloody pulp.

Akira, however, seemed unwilling to let him do so, pleading for his patience as sirens wailed in the background. Akira, as always, was being the voice of reason. His better half.

Though, to expect anything of the sort from that waste of space man before him was perhaps too optimistic. In a flash, faster than a man that drunk should move, he’d grabbed Ren by the back of the neck and shoved him down, hard. When his face collided with the guardrail, he yelled out—

When his eye, his left eye, was being dragged across a loose nail, he screamed. His skin tore, _his eye **tore**_. Blood poured down his face as he reached back, trying desperately to find purchase to shove the man off, _to stop the pain_.

The man toppled to the ground once more, hand gone from the nape of Ren’s neck. Akira stood over both of them, hands out and face pale and _scared_.

 

 _Akira bailed him out again_.

 

The cops were there shortly after, dragging Akira away in handcuffs _and leaving the man to roam free_. And Ren…

Ren woke up later, on the ground next to a bloody guardrail, cold and alone. Akira was gone. The man was gone. The woman was gone. He was left all alone.

 

 

Again.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some of y'all guessed right, congrats congrats.


	3. nightmares.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren wants to wake up.

Ren  _ adored  _ Akira; as the older brother, it was only natural he’d want to coddle him, to protect him. Akira was simply his better half, always had been and— 

Not once did he really look at Akira or the blood in the interrogation room. Not really. He averted his eyes and pretended it was a nightmare— _ because it was his worst nightmare— _ and prayed he’d wake up soon. The street lights illuminating the car in hypnotic flashes as they flew through Tokyo, the surrealism settling into his head like a fog, almost convinced him it was. It had to be.

What a cruel irony, Ren had finally managed to think as he and the prosecutor dragged Akira into her car. Here was his better half, cold and unceremoniously dumped into a stranger’s backseat. Bleeding on it.

The stench of death in that car was probably going to be impossible to scrub away. He could smell it, even now. But it was just a nightmare, an extremely vivid one. He’d wake up—he had to. Even when he wandered into Leblanc, cold, detached and surrounded by people he’d only ever heard about from Akira’s tales that wound late into the night, he was convinced. A dream.

He reeked of death, but the strangers Akira called friends didn’t notice. Hell, they didn’t even notice that he  _ wasn’t Akira _ —an outsider with the same face was enough for them, apparently. And considering the reverence Akira spoke of them, Ren knew there was no way that could be true.

“I don’t remember that scar,” the lanky blue-haired boy commented idly. Ren couldn’t be bothered to remember his name. Names were unimportant in a dream.

“Makeup,” was all he replied. That seemed to be enough for him; his stomach churned sickeningly as they moved on to celebrating Akira’s survival.

They didn’t even really need his input. Somehow, they were all content to chat amongst themselves, to gloat about a mission success that never happened. To smile at him in victory, while he simply stewed in defeat.

In despair. It was a dream. A bad one.

Finally, they left one by one, with waves and goodbyes that lingered like iron in his mouth. They left him alone, as if everything were perfectly fine. As if he wasn’t burning in a nightmare, one that threatened to spill from his lips every time they looked at him with innocent, cheerful eyes.

But he couldn’t. Ren simply had to stay locked in the nightmare, to accept it as his new reality. He’d already promised the prosecutor as much as she begged with more sincerity than he’d seen from the law— _ “the Phantom Thieves do too much good to let them die with Kurusu,”  _ as if  _ that  _ fucking mattered—and he’d accepted like the moron he was. As much as it lacerated his insides to keep lies trapped in there, he never broke a promise.

Except to Akira. He’d promised to keep him safe. The blood from his—his  _ body _ , oh fuck,  _ his body _ —drying onto his hands, stuffed into his pockets away from curious eyes, proves he’d failed. Honestly, it was all he was good at. Failing.

“Akira, you must be tired,” a voice called from below him, startling him hard enough for him to jump. His gaze zeroed in on the cat, the  _ stupid talking cat, _ blinking up at him with creepy, intelligent eyes. Ren didn’t like it, he  _ really _ didn’t like how the cat seemed to just  _ know _ . It knew he was a fake, a lookalike. An impostor. “Let’s go to bed.”

Ren stared for a moment. It was a nightmare, a dream. He couldn’t go to bed  _ in a dream _ . His hands hidden away under drying blood itched. “I’ll be up in a second,” he replied. And really, that was all it took; the cat seemed appeased enough to go trotting up the stairs on its own. Ren was left  _ truly _ alone.

A familiar reality, if there ever was one. He should have known it wasn’t a dream—as if he’d be  _ that _ lucky, as if the world would ever give him a fucking break—but the icy water rinsing away flecks of dried, brown blood from his hands felt too  _ real _ . The bone chilling exhaustion that had seeped in, the cracking of salty, dried tear tracks on his face,  _ felt too real. _

Ren scrubbed at his hands. He could feel the sting as his nails dug into the flesh of his palm, he could feel the foaming of the soap under his skin. He scrubbed, and scrubbed, and  _ scrubbed _ .

And he sobbed, a choked and pitiful thing. Like him. Tears brimmed at his eyes again, spilling over and running hot down his cheeks. The stinging in his hands grew to actual pain—he noticed through bit-back shuddery sobs that he’d broken skin, that  _ his _ blood mixed with Akira’s, wet and dry and running the tap red.

What a mess. He balled his hands into fists and let the water wash away blood. He should have been used to that, at least. Rinsing someone else’s blood from his own bloodied knuckles was familiar territory.

“Akira?” He heard behind him; Ren didn’t turn. He didn’t want to give the stupid  _ fucking _ cat the time of day. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he bit out. He hated how his voice broke, how fucking  _ weak _ it sounded. “Just… just leave me alone.”

It was silent for a bit, long enough that Ren had assumed the cat wandered back upstairs. Then it opened its mouth again—loud thing, really. “No,” it replied. The cat was giving him  _ lip _ — “you’re hurting. Friends don’t leave friends when they’re hurting.”

Yet, the stupid, merry band of thieves were more than happy to leave Akira locked in a box to get beaten raw and  _ murdered _ —he was a  _ fucking corpse _ when Ren saw him again, bruised to high heavens and looked like hell. Anger simmered in his stomach, acidic and ugly as always. “ _ Friends _ ?” His fists tighten under the water until he can feel his nails digging into his palms again. Ren didn’t want to chance looking up, to catch his own reflection. He was _ ugly _ and furious and bitter as all hell. “You think we’re  _ friends _ ? You don’t even know me—”

“Akira talks about you a lot,” the cat interrupts.

Ren stopped cold. And blinked. “What?” He said dumbly.

“He talks about you a lot,” the cat repeated. As if that would fucking help. “He kept it a secret for a while, but—” Ren heard the padding of tiny paws behind him creeping closer and turned to face wide, smart blue eyes, “—he’s bad at keeping secrets from me.”

“Why?”

The cat’s back rippled in an imitation of a shrug. “I’m always with him. And you text him a lot.”

Guilty as charged.

The cat padded closer, then paused and turned his eyes away. “He isn’t okay, is he?”

Guilty.

That was what Ren felt.

  
He felt fucking  _ guilty. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this one was almost dead and then bagel got me back into it...
> 
> this is a mess


End file.
